Jesus gathers a new community. He calls Andrew, Peter, James, and John to fish for people. He calls Peter’s mother-in-law, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome to follow and serve him. They stay with Jesus during his ministry and become the first Christian community after his death and resurrection. They are the eyewitness generation.
The gospels remember many men and women who seek Jesus out to heal and free them. Perhaps they, too, belong to Jesus’ new community. The leper who can’t stop telling people about his healer. The countless sick and possessed people at Jesus’ door.
Mark, the writer of the first gospel, belongs to the second generation of Jesus’ followers. He and many others learn of Jesus from the eyewitness generation who have founded churches all around the Mediterranean area. Mark belongs to the storytelling generation that hears and hands on what Jesus said and did.
The fearful, hesitant hearers of Mark’s gospel belong to the third generation of Christians. In A.D. 70 they are the first to hear the good news of Jesus from the written gospel. These Christians become the generation of the book.
Today Jesus’ new community is over 2,000 years old. In this time the Church has been old and new many times. What seems old in one generation may have been new a generation earlier. Until Pope Pius X urged Catholics in 1910 to receive communion frequently, people rarely did. Until 1962, when Pope John XXIII opened the windows of the Church to the world and the Holy Spirit, the Church followed the definitions and decisions of the Council of Trent, which met from 1547-1563. This council reformed the Church in answer to the Protestant Reformation.
In 1962, John XXIII called bishops worldwide to gather at the Vatican in Rome and bring the Church up to date. He invited Protestants and women to observe. When the Second Vatican Council ended in 1965, its reforms began immediately.
Churches turned their altars to face the people. Catholics around the world began to worship in their own languages instead of Latin. The Council understood the Church as the People of God and the Body of Christ, in which all the baptized are important and called to holiness.
Many men and women became lectors, befrienders, catechists, eucharistic ministers, servers. These changes promoted the “full, conscious, and active participation” of all people in our public worship.
The council wrote a document on ecumenism, committing the Catholic Church to dialog with other Christian denominations and religions. In 1999, Roman Catholic and Lutheran leaders signed statements that they agree God justifies us, not our good works. In 2017, Lutherans and Catholics celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Together they committed to move From Conflict to Communion.
The Council document called the Church in the Modern World called Catholics not just to work at getting to heaven but to transform injustice on earth. It continued the Catholic social teaching Pope Leo XIII began in the 1890s, defending the rights of workers to jobs and fair wages.
The document begins, “The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ” (#1). Every person has basic rights to food, clothing, shelter, a family, education, employment, health care. Every person has the duty to respect and ensure these rights.
Bishops in the United States have continued to write pastoral letters on today’s issues, especially criticizing the social attitudes that accept poverty, racism, colonialism, sexism, and the supposed natural and God-given inferiorities of some people. They teach that nuclear war is immoral and urge economic justice for all. They urge Catholics to end racism, respect the human dignity of people who are gay or lesbian or straight, and care for Earth.